Tuesday, December 14, 2010

UPS ruined my Christmas!

This is some epic courier FAIL right here folks. I know it's popular to overstate failage these days, but if anything ever deserved the term EPIC FAIL, it's this tale right here.

Settle in folks! This will take a little while. As you read, bear one thing in mind: this all happened or came to light the same day -- today.

For Christmas I ordered my wife a fondue pot from Amazon. (It's okay, she knows what it is now. Read on.) It was supposed to have arrived by the 7th, but they shipped it USPS so I couldn't track it. It never came and never came. Finally today I went back to Amazon to file a request for help, when I noticed that I had been mistaken and it actually shipped via UPS. So I tracked it!

Delivery location: "Rear door".

We do not have a rear door.

We have a sliding glass door that opens onto a small patio with a 4.5-foot high, 8-inch thick concrete privacy wall. Surrounded by some bushes. And about 3' of landscaped ground cover.

The UPS delivery dude:

Walked through the landscaping.

Stepped over or through the bushes.

Climbed over the wall.

HID THE BOX BEHIND A CHAIR.

...out from underneath the roof overhang.

So it's been outside in the Bay Area rainy season getting rained on for a week. I brought it inside, and had to open it to see how fuckered it is (which is why Aimee knows what it is.) Jury's still out, but the actual product might have survived. Let's just say that the box is over. GOOD JOB, UPS!

For Christmas, I also ordered my dad $MULTIPART_GIFT from $LOCAL_VENDOR. Now, $LOCAL_VENDOR is a small chain and has several warehouses. So my $MULTIPART_GIFT order was split into 3 separate UPS shipments.

Package #1 arrived on time, on the 7th. Huzzah!

Package #2 was supposed to arrive on the 8th. Since my mom told me it still hadn't arrived, I tracked it. It reached Latham, NY (the nearest distribution center) on the 9th. The tracking history says:

A CORRECT STREET NUMBER IS NEEDED FOR DELIVERY. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION

and then the next day: THE RECEIVER'S ADDRESS IS INCOMPLETE. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THE ENTIRE ADDRESS AND COMPLETE THE DELIVERY. / THE ADDRESS HAS BEEN CORRECTED. THE DELIVERY HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED

Please note that this is the exact same address -- verbatim -- as the package that had been delivered 2 days earlier. What then? Well, it was delivered, today, the 14th, as follows:

Delivered On: 12/14/2010 11:05 A.M.

Signed By:SEAN

Location:OFFICE

Delivered To: MOUNTAIN VIEW, CA, US

Shipped/Billed On:12/07/2010

Now I sure hope that means that they delivered it to my apartment complex office, but at this point all bets are off. There was a note on our door so hopefully that is what happened, but so much for 2-day UPS shipping. If I had wanted it myself I would have driven to the store to pick it up. GOOD JOB, UPS!!

But what's that you say? There were three packages? Why, yes, as a matter of fact there were.

BEHOLD the fate of Package #3:

From Gloversville, NY (the other nearby UPS distribution center):
THE CUSTOMER WAS NOT AVAILABLE ON THE 1ST ATTEMPT. A 2ND ATTEMPT WILL BE MADE
(Note: false. My mother was home all day.)

And then the next day:
OUT FOR DELIVERY
...and then (you guessed it!): A CORRECT COMPANY OR RECEIVER NAME IS NEEDED FOR DELIVERY. UPS IS ATTEMPTING TO OBTAIN THIS INFORMATION / THE ADDRESS HAS BEEN CORRECTED. THE DELIVERY HAS BEEN RESCHEDULED
...and then finally: DELIVERED

DELIVERED?? Huzzah, that's gre-- hold up.

Delivered On: 12/14/2010 3:03 P.M.

Signed By: $NOT_MY_PARENTS

Location:RESIDENTIAL

Delivered To: GALWAY, NY, US

Shipped/Billed On:12/09/2010

I have no idea who $NOT_MY_PARENTS is. Galway is -- according to Google Maps -- 10.2 miles from my parents' house. GOOD JOB, UPS!!

So UPS -- that's the United Parcel Service -- left my wife's Christmas gift in the rain after delivering it to a wildly inappropriate location without protection from the elements. And then UPS -- that's the ups of www.ups.com -- shuffled one of my dad's $MULTIPART_GIFT across the continent twice and delivered it to me instead of him. And then finally, UPS -- that is, the well-known and now apparently corner-cutting courier who seems to have lowered the hiring bar on both coasts -- delivered the third part of my dad's $MULTIPART_GIFT to $NOT_MY_PARENTS in a town 10 miles away.

No, you wouldn't want golf carts. That's a long drive from cali to new york. The diesels idle for a short period of time.. more waste found in a bundle of junked golf cart batteries. Unless you mean gas powered golf carts.. in which case.. ? For holidays, perhaps consumers - gift senders and recievers can login to the carrier of their choice and push/pull packages to their local carrier repo in order to shorten the added footwork for the holidays.

But that would probably get messed up... they should, however.. have an id/barcode tied to a recipient's address. That way it wouldn't be success, fail, fail.. not saying it wouldn't be fail fail fail. But at least there would be consistency.

You’re right to be disappointed with the service you described in your post. This is certainly not the experience we want to deliver. For that, I want to offer my sincere apologies. I’d like to get your concerns addressed. As noted in our Twitter reply to your tweet, we’d like to get your contact information to follow up. Please contact us at twitter@ups.com.

you're not alone with your UPS troubles, although mine weren't nearly as bad.

for us:Tracked package saw "Delivered: Porch"well, ok, so I went & looked at the back porch. nothing. we had 18" of snow over the weekend and i haven't cleared my back porch so it was fairly obvious that the driver didn't walk around back there & i was just missing it. Then checked the front step just in case, again, not there.

I went to blow some more snow while my wife called UPS. they said it was delivered to the porch, which we obviously saw online. UPS told her to call Amazon to find out where the package is, as if Amazon would know better than the driver.

While blowing snow, a minivan pulled up and the driver started walking towards me carrying a small box. At first I thought it was a mail carrier delivering mail late but then she told me she was my neighbor an entire block away and that she also had my TV sitting in her porch.

Glad I have honest neighbors or else this could have been a real nightmare dealing with Amazon & UPS.

I usually get my packages, but the driver in Apopka for UPS has literally NEVER shown his face - not even for required signatures. I have seen his back a few times but he's back in his car within seconds... Sucker is quick!

UPS was paid for 2 day air service for Christmas goodies for the whole family. $750 load from Sierra Trading. Tracking load of boxes accross the country and they all go from Colorado to Kentucky on their way to California. UPS just updates their delivery date to 12/26/2012. You know, 'cause It's still Christmas if you don't have gifts. Shameful

Geesh. I'm glad I've never had these sorts of problems with UPS. In fact, I'm always glad when I see something is coming via UPS instead of USPS. What bad luck that you had something bad with them happen not once but twice!

only rainwater and pure grain alcohol

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